Early  American  Bookbinding  (and  kindred  subjects)  (illustrated)     William  Loring   Andrew 


H-*. 


&/>?■    A      Oct-    /j**. 


Vol.  XVI. 


No.   i 


THE    BOOKMAN 


AN     ILLUSTRATED     M A  G  A  Z I X  E 
OF     LITERATURE     AND     LIFE 


CONTENTS   FOR   SEPTEMBER 


Chronicle  and  Comment 

Two  Curious  Facts  ..... 

The  Unspeakable  Scot— Some  Phases  of  Mr.  W.  T.  H 

CroslancTs  widely  discussed  Book  (with  portrait  of 

Mr.  Crosland)  ...... 

Charles   Paul  de  Kock  — Portrait  (see  Article  page  23) 
Carmen  d' Assilva— A  new  Patisian  literary  Sensation 

(with  portrait)  ..... 

The  late    Elizabeth    Drew    Barstow   Sioddard   (with 

portrait  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Richard  Henrv  Stoddard) 
George  Eliot — Similarity  of  the  Plots  of  Adam  Hede 

and  Sir   Walter    Scott's    The  Heart  of  ^Midlothian 

(with   illustration) 
Elizabeth   Higgins  — The  author  of  Out  of  the  West 

I  A  ilh  portrait)  .  .  . 


1         Eden  Phillpotts's    Methods  of  Work  — (with  portrait 

and  illustration  1  .  .  .  .  <    ; 

Some  Impressions  of  Richard   Harding    Davis — Ran 

1  sou's   Folly — Van   Bibber— .Mr     Davis's    Heroes  and 

2  Heroines — His  Humour  — His  Patriotic  Kffects  (with 
portrait  1  .....  8-9-1  j 

3  About  Mrs.   Wharton  — Her  Book  Titles—  The  Valley 

of  Decision.  The  Greater  Inclination,  The  Touchstone. 

4  (]>  ncial  Instances  .  .  .  .  .11 
St.  Elmo  and  its  Author — The  wide  popularity  of  St.  t 

Elmo-  lis  Merits  and  us  Absurdities— Mrs.  Wilson's 
s  other  Books  (with  portrait  of  .Mrs.  Wilson")  12    : ",    .1 

The  Dumas  Centenary — The   exact  date  of  Dumas's 
6  Birth      .......         14 


The  Homing    Bird  (Poem) 

Some   Humour  of  Some  Humourists  (illustrated) 

Charles  Paul  de  Kock      .... 

The  Quest  of  Ann  Achron— (Some  Blurred   Impressions  of  the 

Omnipresent)         ....... 

Was  Talleyrand  Born  in  Mt.  Desert,  Maine? 

A  New   English  Poet  ... 

French   Men  of  Letters  in   Caricature.     The  Second  Empire 


Richard   Bukion 

La  Touche  Hancock 

Beverly  Stark 

Charlton  Andrews 
Jane  Marsh  Pokier 
Joseph  B.   Gilder 


L.     E.     RoUSSILLON 

Annah  Robinson  Watson' 
Marguerite    Merington 
Frederic  Taber  Cooper 
Edward  W.   Barnard 


Period  (illustrated)  .... 

A   Vision  (I'oem)      ...... 

The  Bases  of  the  Drama.     III.  The  Audience    . 
Maeterlinck  and  the  Forbidden  Play 
A  Ballade  of  the  Reviewer  (Poem) 
Four  Books  of  Some  Importance 

I.    The  Story  of  the  Mormons 
II.    Mr.  Wilson's    "The  Spenders" 

III.  Elizabeth  Godfrey's  "The  Winding  Road" 

IV.  Mr.  Harben's    "Abner  Daniel" 
Early  American  Bookbinding  (and  Kindred  Subjects)  (illustrated)     William  Loring  Andrews 
The  Confessions  of  a  Vicarious  Person  .  .     Patience  Croswell 
Shakespeare  and  the  Metropolitan  Stage                 ..  Elizabeth    McCracken 
Fuel  of  Fire.     Chapters  XIV.,  XV.  and  XVI.       .             .             .     Ellen  Thorneycroet  FowLtK 
The  Book   Mart. 


I.     WOODBRIDGE    RlLEY 

James  L.   Ford 

Walter  Strong  Edwards 

Carl  Hovey 


Pastern  Letter 
Western  Letter 
Knglish  Letter  . 


89  Books  Received  from  July  10  to  August  10 

90  Sales  of  Books  During  the  Month 

91  The  Best  Selling  Books 


2b 
JO 


42 
4  = 

4" 


;6 


93 

00 


Published  Monthly 


Pkiul. 


Cen  is 


Per  Yeai 


Copyright,   1902.  bv  Dood.   Mead  &  Company:    *  41 1  rights  reserved. 
Entered  at  the  Post  Office,  New  York,  N.  Y.,  as  Second-ciass  Mail  Matter. 


EARLY  AMERICAN   BOOKBINDING 

AND    KINDRED    SUBJECTS. 
By  William   Loring  Andrews. 


That  bookbinding  is  an  ancient,  hon- 
ourable and  aesthetic  employment,  will  not 
be  gainsaid  by  any  intelligent  student  of 
industrial  art,  and  yet  it  is  only  within 
the  last  quarter  of  a  century  that  it  has 
begun  to  receive  the  attention  to  which 
it  is  deemed  entitled  by  that  small  but 
constantly  recruited  band  of  enthusiasts 
who  delight  in  fine  books  fitly  bound,  and 
who  for  this  and  other  idiosyncrasies 
in  regard  to  books  have  been  mercilessly 
satirised  ever  since  the  days  of  that  iron- 
ical old  scribe  Sebastian  Brant.  Prior 
to  this  comparatively  recent  period,  writ- 
ers, both  here  and  abroad,  taking  their 
cue,  it  may  be,  from  the  crusty  author 
of  The  Skip  of  Foolcs  and  his  equally 
caustic  translator,  aider  and  abettor,  Al- 
exander Barclay,  Priest,  appear  to  have 
regarded  the  topic  as  a  trivial  one,  and  of 
too  little  general  interest  to  justify  the 
expenditure  upon  it  of  even  a  modicum 
of  their  energies  and  talents ;  but  of  late 
the  times  have  vastly  changed  in  this  re- 
spect, and  the  art  which  is  to  so  great  an 
extent  preservative  of  the  art  of  print- 
ing— for  without  a  binding  the  leaves  of 
a  book  would  speedily  part  company — 
has  now  a  surfeit  of  notoriety.  Those 
past-masters  in  bibliopegy — the  Eves,  Le 
Gascon,  Padeloup  Le  Jeune  and  the  vari- 
ous members  of  the  numerous  and  tal- 
ented family  of  Deromes,  would,  T  fancy, 
start  in  amazement  from  their  long, 
dreamless  sleep,  could  they  hear  the  pae- 
ans now  chanted  in  praise  of  the 
handicraft  they  carried  to  such  perfec- 
tion, in  their  quiet  eyries,  aloft  amid  the 


cooing  and  circling  of  doves,  under  the 
eaves  of  the  steep-pitched  roofs  of  the 
old  city  of  Paris. 

Few  authors,  little  or  great,  since  the 
days  of  that  archetype  of  bibliophiles  of 
loved  and  revered  memory,  Richard  de 
Bury,  have  shown  themselves  possessed 
of  a  love  of  well-made  books,  or  mani- 
fested any  concern  in  regard  to  the  man- 
ner in  which  their  lucubrations  were 
printed,  bound  and  presented  to  the  pub- 
lic gaze.  Apparently,  they  regarded  the 
matter  with  indifference,  if  not  with  a 
feeling  akin  to  contempt — an  altogether 
unnecessary  painting  of  the  fair  lily  of 
literature,  which  had  budded  and  blos- 
somed under  their  fostering  care.  This 
attitude  on  their  part  must  strike  even  the 
casual  observer  as  being  a  rather  short- 
sighted one,  to  say  the  least.  Most  writ- 
ers, I  have  been  led  by  observation  to 
conclude,  are  not  free  from  a  touch  of 
egotism,  and  believe  sincerely  that  "the 
thoughts  that  breathe  and  words  that 
burn"  which  flow  from  the  tips  of  their 
fluent  pens,  deserve,  and  will  achieve, 
lasting  fame.  But  how,  pray,  can  they 
be  transmitted  to  posterity,  if  printed 
upon  paper  that  has  latent  within  it  the 
seeds  of  decay,  and  encased  in  machine- 
made  bindings  too  unsubstantial  to  with- 
stand the  gentlest  usage  for  any  pro- 
tracted length  of  time,  much  less  the 
rough-and-readv  treatment  that  is  quite 
certain  to  be  their  future  lot ;  for  few  peo- 
ple know,  or  are  solicitous  to  know,  how 
to  care  properly   for  books  and  bestow 


Early  American  Bookbinding 


57 


upon  them  the  zealous  guardianship  they 
require,  in  order  to  ensure  them  a  ripe 
and  serene  old  age. 

If  the  books  of  the  ancients  had  been  of 
as  perishable  a  nature  as  are  the  major- 
ity of  those  the  modern  press  puts  forth, 
the  perennial  fountains  from  which  we 
now  draw  the  wisdom  and  learning  of 
past  ages  would  have  ceased  to  flow  at 
tbeir  very  sources,  and  we  should  have  in 
lieu  thereof,  only  the  scanty  and  turbid 
rills  of  oral  tradition  and  legendary  lore. 
It  is  only  too  true  that  never  since 
printing  was  invented  has  there  been  a 
time  when  books,  as  a  rule,  were  in  all 
respects,  and  not  alone  in  the  matter  of 
binding,  to  so  great  an  extent  as  they 
are  to-day,  the  "larcenies  from  future 
ages"  that  Lesne,  the  poet  bookbinder  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  declared  poorly- 
bound  books  to  be. 

For  this  state  of  things  the  typographers 
are  responsible.  A  decline  in  the  art  of 
printing  is  inevitably  followed  by  a  de- 
cadence in  the  arts  related  thereto.  A 
fine  exterior  presupposes  a  well-made 
book ;  for,  as  has  been  well  said :  "The 
binding  is  the  robe  of  honour  in  which  we 
insert  a  noble  book,  and  upon  the  binding 
we  impress  its  external  insignia,  of  rank 
and  merit."  The  conclusion  which  forces 
itself  upon  the  mind  of  every  one  inter- 
ested in  the  matter  is  this :  that  book- 
making  in  most  of  its  branches,  as  prac- 
ticed with  varying  degrees  of  skill  and 
taste  for  three  centuries  after  the  great 
invention  of  movable  type,  is  to-day  as 
completely  a  lost  art  as  is  that  of  Oiron 
pottery  or  the  enamel  of  Limoges. 

Then  a  book  was  still  a  book, 
Where  a  wistful  man  might  look, 
Finding  something  through  the  whole 
Beating — like  a  human  soul. 

In  that  growth  of  day  by  day. 
When  to  labour  was  to  pray, 
Surely  something  vital  passed 
To  the  patient  page  at  last. 

Something  that  one  still  perceives 
Vaguely  present  in  the  leaves, 
Something  from  the  worker  lent, 
Something  mute — but  eloquent. 

Truth  and  poetry  are  equally  blended 
in  these  graceful  lines  of  Austin  Dobson ; 
and  now  let  us  read  the  words  penned  by 
that    scholar    and    bibliophile,     Richard 


Grant  White,  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago, 
concerning  the  state  of  the  arts  of  print- 
ing and  bookbinding  in  this  great,  free 
and  enlightened  Republic : 

"When  I  say  that  the  art  of  printing 
and  of  bookmaking  in  general  has  not 
advanced  in  New  York,  or  even  in  the 
United  States,  within  the  last  fifty  years,  I 
may  expect  a  chorus  of  protests,  in  which 
I  fear  the  voice  of  Henry  Houghton,  of 
the  Riverside  Press,  may  be  heard.  But 
I  do  say  distinctly,  and  without  reserve 
or  qualification,  that  New  York  could  and 
did  produce  a  handsomer  book  fifty  years 
ago  than  she  does  (whatever  her  ability) 
now,  and  I  hold  myself  ready  to  prove 
this  by  an  example  before  a  jury  of  ex- 
perts in  the  art  of  bookmaking.  This 
example  is  a  copy  of  the  Book  of  Com- 
mon Prayer,  published  in  New  York  in 
the  year  1819.  The  printing  of  it,  both 
for  accuracy  and  beauty,  is  admirable, 
and  would  compare  advantageously  with 
the  best  work  of  its  period  in  England. 
The  letter,  the  justification,  the  register, 
the  ink  and  the  presswork  are  of  the  best 
kind,  and  have  a  solidity  and  dignity  of 
expression  which  command  respect.  The 
binding,  which  is  in  straight-grained 
crimson  Morocco,  is  such  as  William 
Matthews  need  not  be  ashamed  of,  and 
such,  indeed,  as  he  himself  puts  only  on 
the  finest,  specially  ordered  'extra'  work. 
The  taste  of  the  ornament  would  not 
have  satisfied  Count  Grolier,  but  it  is  far 
better  than  that  of  the  usual  English 
work  of  its  period,  and  the  delicacy  of  the 
tooling,  both  the  gilt  and  the  dead  work, 
and  the  exactness  of  the  mitring  are 
•quite  equal  to  that  of  the  most  celebrated 
English  binders  of  the  time,  superior,  in- 
deed, to  Roger  Payne's.  It  might  not 
unreasonably  be  supposed  that  such  a 
book  as  this  was  printed  and  bound  in 
England.  Not  so.  It  was  stereotyped  by 
D.  and  G.  Bruce,  New  York,  a  well- 
known  firm  of  that  period,  and  it  was 
printed  by  J.  and  J.  Harper,  a  New  York 
printing  firm,  tolerably  well  known  at  the 
present  time,  but  then  only  of  nascent 
fame.  .  .  .  Who  was  the  binder  I  do 
not  know,  and  I  am  sorry  that  I  cannot 
give  him  credit  for  such  a  specimen  of 
New  York  skill  and  taste  at  that  period. 
It  might  be  supposed  that  this  copy  was 
specially  bound  to  order,  which,  however, 
if  it  were  the  case,  would  not  affect  the 
question  of  the  skill  and  the  taste  of  the 


5» 


The  Bookman 


period ;  but  it  is  not  so.  This  copy  is  not 
only  one  of  two  exactly  alike  which  were 
in  mv  father's  pew  in  St.  George's 
Church  in  Beekman  Street,  but  I  have 
seen  other  copies  of  it  exactly  like  these 
in  design  and  execution-  although  the 
work  is  not  done  with  a  stamp,  but  what 
is  known  as  hand-tooling.  This  shows 
that  the  book  was  bound  up  for  general 
sale  in  this  style,  and  although  it,  of 
course,  must  have  been  very  costly  at  that 
time,  particularly  as  it  is  illustrated  with 
line  engravings,  none  the  less  it  is  like  St. 
Paul's  Church,  the  Old  City  Hall  and  the 
statue  of  Hamilton,  a  witness  to  the  taste 
and  culture  of  New  York,  and  the  skill 
of  her  artisans  fifty  years  and  more  ago." 

This  is  warm  praise  and  sharp  criti- 
cism, and  will  no  doubt  be  met  with  a 
smile  of  incredulity  by  our  modern 
bookmakers,  but  the  bibliophile  will  en- 
dorse every  word  of  it,  save,  I  trust,  the 
statement  that  the  binding  on  this  Book 
of  Common  Prayer  is  superior  to  any 
produced  by  Roger  Payne.  I  would  not 
name  them  in  quite  the  same  breath,  for 
one  is  the  work  of  a  master,  whose  style 
of  decoration,  as  William  Matthews  has 
truthfully  said,  was  strikingly  his  own, 
the  other  that  of  a  pupil  and  imitator. 
Furthermore,  the  paper  used  in  the  book 
so  highly  extolled  by  Mr.  White  must 
have  contained  that  deleterious  ingredi- 
ent which  proved  the  bane  of  so  much 
of  the  paper  manufactured  at  that  period, 
both  here  and  in  England,  and  caused  it, 
in  process  of  time,  to  "fox"  and  turn  a 
dirty  brown  in  spots ;  but  Mr.  White 
probably  was  not  aware  of  this  imper- 
fection when  he  wrote  his  spicy  comment 
and  threw  down  his  gauntlet  to  the  book- 
makers of  New  York. 

We  are  more  fortunate  than  the  Shake- 
sperian  commentator  in  that  we  have  be- 
fore us  two  copies  of  this  Book  of  Com- 
mon Prayer  bound  in  the  style  that  he  de- 
scribes, one  of  which,  an  heirloom  in  the 
family  of  Mr.  Beverly  Chew,  contains 
the  binder's  ticket,  H.  I.  Megary,  a  New 
York  stationer,  printer  and  publisher  in 
the  early  part  of  the  last  century  whose 
name  is  well  and  favourably  known  to 
collectors  of  engraved  pictures  of  the  City 
of  New  York.  The  other  copy,  belong- 
ing to  Mr.  Bowen  W.  Pierson,  is  in  the 
same  style,  and  the  same  tools  were  em- 
ployed in  the  decoration,  but  were 
worked  after  a  different  design.    The  let- 


tering on  the  back  is  in  Gothic  type,  a 
character  we  would  not  he  surprised  to 
find  employed  upon  the  back  of  a  black- 
letter  "fifteener,"  but  its  use  on  a  modern 
book  is  quite  exceptional. 

The  artistic  binding  and  exterior  deco- 
ration of  books,  so  long  a  neglected  study, 
may  be  said  without  exaggeration  to 
have  latterly  become  a  rage.  Annual  ex- 
hibitions of  richly-decorated  bindings  are 
conspicuous  features  of  our  Metropolitan 
book-shops,  and  treatises  more  or  less 
erudite  upon  the  art  of  bookbinding,  fol- 
low one  another  in  rapid  succession  from 
a  press  whose  watchful  pilots  are  ever 
closely  scanning  the  literary  horizon,  and 
stand  prepared  to  trim  their  sails  hourly, 
if  need  be,  in  order  to  catch  the  shifting 
winds  of  capricious  popular  fancy.  Thus 
the  pendulum  swings  to  and  fro,  and  we 
vibrate  from  one  extreme  to  the  other  in 
our  tastes  and  temporarily  ruling  pas- 
sions. 

The  Bibliography  of  Books  upon 
Bookbinding,  published  in  1893  by  Miss 
S.  T.  Prideaux,  herself  a  successful  prac- 
tical exponent  of  the  art,  embraces  four 
hundred  and  seventy-five  titles.  In  the 
years  that  have  elapsed  since,  additional 
works  by  the  score  have  made  their  ap- 
pearance, many  of  which  are  little  more 
than  compilations  from  the  writings  of 
previous  authors.  A  small  proportion 
(such  as  essays  by  those  whose  own 
trained  and  skilful  hands  have  produced 
fine  examples  of  bookbinding)  has  made 
us,  no  doubt,  more  conversant  with  the 
technical  methods  and  the  mysteries  of 
the  craft,  but  from  an  historical  point  of 
view  the  subject  was  exhausted  long  ago. 
We  have  been  told  with  tiresome  repeti- 
tion of  the  books  "so  fairly  bound"  which 
graced  the  famous  libraries  of  those  mu- 
nificent patrons  of  the  arts,  Maoli,  Gro- 
lier,  Canevari,  De  Thou  and  those  "light 
and  airy  ladies"  of  fastidious  taste  in 
books  and  bindings,  Margaret  of  Valois 
and  Diana  of  Poictiers  ;  of  the  books  elab- 
orately tooled  and  richly  painted  for  the 
kings,  queens,  princes,  prelates  and 
statesmen  of  Italy,  France  and  England, 
which  long  since  were  allotted  their 
rightful  place  among  the  priceless  art 
treasures  of  the  world  ;  of  the  Eves,  Gas- 
cons, Padeloups.  Monniers,  Deromes, 
Capes,  Trautz-Bauzonnets,  Chambolle- 
Durus  and  Cuzins :  the  Mearnes,  Roger 
Paynes,     Lewises     and     Bedfords :     the 


Early  American  Bookbinding 


59 


French  tinselled  and  silk-embroidered 
bindings,  and  those  deftly  fashioned  and 
patiently  wrought  by  the  pious  hands  of 
the  nuns  of  Little  Gidding,  but  few  and 
faint  are  the  whisperings  that  fall  upon 
our  listening  ears,  concerning  bibliopegy 
on  this  side  of  the  broad  and  boisterous 
Atlantic. 

In  the  report  of  a  French  delegation  of 
artisans  to  the  Philadelphia  Centennial 
Exhibition*  sixteen  pages  are  allotted  to 
a  description  of  the  American  bindings 
there  displayed,  which  were,  however, 
largely  composed  of  the  commercial  bind- 
ings of  the  time,  and  the  heavily  stamped 
and  floridly  gilded  outward  covers  of 
the  pictorial  histories,  and  huge  illus- 
trated family  Bibles  which  were  the 
pride  of  our  forbears,  and  lent  an  air  of 
distinction  to  the  parlor  centre  table  in 
all  well-to-do  and  well-regulated  house- 
holds. Mr.  Brander  Matthews,  in  his 
Bookbindings  Old  and  New,  descants  at 
some  length  upon  modern  bookbind- 
ing in  the  United  States,  and  we  find  here 
and  there  in  other  publications*  curt 
paragraphs  of  a  disparaging  tenor,  similar 
to  the  following,  which  we  quote  from 
Octave  Uzanne's  La  Rclinre  Moderne; 
but  in  respect  to  the  practice  of 'an  art  in 
this  country,  prior  to  the  days  of  William 
Matthews,  the  silence  is,  we  repeat,  well- 
nigh  profound. 

"L'Amerique  [writes  M.  Uzanne]  se 
rejouit  de  posseder  Matthews,  que  les 
New  Yorkais  considerent  comme  un 
demi-Dieu  et  qu'ils  inondent  de  centaines 
de  dollars,  lorsque  celui-ci  daigne,  des  ses 
propres  mains,  revetir  une  belle  edition 
de  brown  or  red  maroco.  Matthews  a 
cree  un  genre  d'ornamentation ;  e'est  un 
original,  et  ses  reliures  peuvent  hardi- 
ment  se  comparer  a  celles  de  MM.  Mar- 
ius-Michel,  sauf  peutetre  ce  (je  ne  sais 
quoi)  qui  tient  la  grace  franchise  et  qui 
ne  saurait  passer  les  mers  sans  y  perdre 
son  caractere." 

Have  a  care,  Monsieur  Uzanne.  Evi- 
dently some  one  has  been  imposing  upon 
your  credulity,  for  I  can  and  do  here  tes- 

*Ext>osition  Universelle  de  Philadclphic, 
18/6.  Delegation  Ouvriere  de  Libres  Relicurs. 
Paris,  1879. 

*L'Art  dans  la  Decoration  Exterieure  des 
Livres  en  France  et  a  I'Etranger,  Paris,  1898, 
devotes  a  page  and  a  half  in  a  book  of  275 
pages  to  American  bindings,  and  mentions  the 
names  of  Matthews,  Bradstreet,  The  Club 
Bindery,    Smith   and   Stickerman    (Stikeman). 


tify  of  my  own  knowledge  that  Mr.  Mat- 
thews's  charges  for  his  finest  bindings 
were  moderate  in  the  extreme.  They 
were  done,  be  it  understood,  for  friend- 
ship's sake  and  not  for  gain,  and  Mr. 
Matthews  would  not,  I  am  quite  certain, 
have  undertaken  the  elaborate  binding  of 
a  book  for  any  and  every  one,  no  matter 
how  many  "centaines  de  dollars"  might 
be  cast  at  his  feet. 

The  frank  in  matters  of  art  is  suf- 
ficient unto  himself.  As  for  bookbind- 
ers, he  believes  in  his  heart  of  hearts  that 
there  never  were  nor  will  be  any  outside 
of  his  own  beautiful  and  adored  city  of 
Paris,  worthy  of  the  name.  That  the 
Parisian  bookbinders  stand,  and  always 
have  stood,  in  the  front  rank  of  their  pro- 
fession, no  bibliophile  the  world  over  will 
deny.  But  is  not  variety  the  spice  of 
life?  The  gastronome,  if  restricted  to  a 
single  article  of  diet  for  a  length  of  time, 
finds  that  it  palls  upon  his  palate,  even 
though  the  dish  be  concocted  with  all  the 
culinary  skill  of  a  Careme  or  a  Vatel. 
We  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race — more 
catholic,  if  less  refined,  in  our  tastes,  than 
the  perhaps  hyper-aesthetic  descendants 
of,  the  ancient  Gauls,  enjoy  the  lesser  art 
achievements  of  other  nations,  in  which 
the  French  dilettante  manifests  little  or 
no  concern,  simply  because  they  are  not 
the  products  of  the  skill  and  genius  of  his 
own  countrymen. 

Apologetical  of  this  indifference  and 
neglect  on  the  part  of  our  own,  as  well  as 
European  writers,  upon  bibliopegy,  the 
undeniable  fact  may  be  adduced  that  our 
bookbinders  had  not,  until  the  last  thirty 
or  forty  years  (except  for  a  brief  period 
immediately  after  the  close  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary War,  which  ended  as  unaccount- 
ably and  precipitately  as  it  began), 
shown  themselves  able  to  produce  work 
that  could  be  pronounced  artistic.  A  sur- 
vey of  the  art  as  it  flourished  in  Europe 
during  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries  leads  us  through  the  winding 
paths  of  a  well-ordered  garden,  bright 
with  the  variegated  colours,  and  redolent 
with  the  fragrance  of  lovinglv  and  pa- 
tiently nurtured  flowers ;  whereas,  a 
study  of  bibliopegy,  as  it  was  haltingly 
and  laboriously  developed  in  this  coun- 
try during  the  corresponding  period,  con- 
ducts us  for  most  of  the  tiresome  way 
over  a  field  of  brown  and  withered  win- 
ter stubble.     For  many  years  the  bindery 


6o 


The  Bookman 


in  the  United  States  remained  a  sub- 
sidiary but  necessary  adjunct  to  the  print- 
ing house,  and  nothing  more.  It  re- 
quired a  generation  of  book-lovers  and 
collectors,  and  the  imperative  demand 
thereby  created,  to  establish  artistic  bib- 
liopegy  in  our  midst  as  a  separate 
and  distinct  occupation.  But  books  have 
been  bound  by  our  native  workmen  after 
one  fashion  or  another,  and  better,  on  the 
whole,  than  might  have  been  expected, 
for  the  past  two  centuries  and  a  half,  and 
the  story  of  the  craft  from  its  humble  be- 
ginnings in  New  England  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  to  modern  times  should 
not  be  devoid  of  interest  to  the  American 
bibliophile,  if  to  no  other,  and  he  assur- 
edly is  the  one  to  be  reckoned  with  in  the 
immediate  future  of  book-collecting,  for 
he  happens,  just  now,  to  be  the  possessor 
of  the  best-lined  purse,  and  by  virtue 
thereof,  master  of  the  situation. 

In  the  quiet  sanctuary  of  the  soon-to- 
be-evicted  Lenox  Library,  where  repose 
in  peace  for  yet  a  little  season  so  many 
rare  and  priceless  manuscripts  and 
printed  books,  drawn  thither  by  its 
founder  from  the  scriptoriums  and 
presses  of  both  the  old  and  new  worlds, 
there  is  a  copy  of  The  Psalms,  Hymns 
and  Spiritual  Songs,  printed  in  165 1  by 
Samuel  Green,  the  successor  of  Stephen 
Dave,  New  England's  first  typographer. 
This  little  volume — only  2^x4^  inches  in 
size — of  about  400  pages,  is  known  as  the 
Third  Edition  of  the  Bay  Psalm  Book. 
It  is  of  greater  rarity  (for  this,  I  under- 
stand, is  the  only  copy  of  it  known)  than 
its  predecessor  and  namesake,  which  en- 
joys the  distinction  of  being  the  first  book 
printed  in  British  North  America;  but  it 
is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  it  does 
not  approach  it  in  money  value.  It  came 
from  Mr.  Charles  H.  Kalbileisch's  re- 
markable collection,  whom  it  is  said  to 
have  cost  one  thousand  dollars,  and  was 
presented  to  the  library  by  Mr.  Alexan- 
der Maitland.  It  is  well  and  stoutly 
bound  in  brown  calf,  the  covers  held  to- 
gether by  leathern  and  brass  clasps,  the 
only  attempt  at  ornamentation  being  a 
narrow  gold  line  traced  around  the  bor- 
ders of  each  side,  a  small  centre  orna- 
ment and  the  initials  F.  B.  If  it  is,  as 
we  presume,  the  original  binding,  it  is 
one  of  the  earliest  examples  extant  of 
bookbinding  executed  in  the  province  of 
Massachusetts,  and  consequently  in  this 


part  of  North  America,  for  the  old  Bay 
State  may  pride  itself  upon  having  been 
the  cradle  of  bibliopegy,  as  well  as 
of  typography,  in  the  new  and  unsettled 
land  of  our  forefathers. 

This  edition  of  the  Psalms  turned  into 
metre  is  known  as  the  "Bay  Psalm 
Book  Improved."  The  nature  of  the  re- 
vision which  the  first  issue  of  this  noted 
book  underwent,  will  be  seen  by  the  par- 
allels we  have  drawn  below  of  the  first, 
second  and  sixth  stanzas  of  the  First 
Psalm,  in  the  two  editions  : 


THE  BAY  PSALMS. 
1640. 

1 
O,    Blessed    man,    that 
in  th'  advice 
of  wicked   doeth   not 
walk ; 
nor    stand    in    sinners' 
way,  nor  sit 
in  chayre  of  scornfnll 
folk. 

2 
But  in  the  law  of  Jeho- 
vah, 
is     his     longing     de- 
light: 
and    in    his    law    doth 
meditate  by  day  and 
eke  by  night. 

6 
For  the  righteous  men 
the  Lord 
acknowledgeth        the 
way : 
but     the     way     of    un- 
godly men, 
shall  utterly  decay. 


THE     BAY     PSALM 
BOOK  IMPROVED. 

1651. 

1 
O      blessed      man      yt 
walks  not  in 
th'  advice   of   wicked 
mem 
Nor  stadeth  in  ye  sin- 
ers'  way 
nor  scorners  seat  sits 
in. 


But    he    upo    Jehovah's 
law 
doth     set    his    whole 
delight; 
And    in    his    law    doth 
meditate 
both    in    the    day    & 
night. 


For    of    the    righteous 
men  the  LORD 
acknowledgeth        the 
way 
Whereas    the    way    of 
wicked  men 
shall  utterly  decay. 


The  Bay  Psalm  Book  passed  through 
many  editions  without  further  altera- 
tions, until  it  was  revised  in  1758  by  the 
devout  and  learned  theologian,  Rev. 
Thomas  Prince.  The  copy  of  this  edi- 
tion in  the  Lenox  Library  is  probably  in 
its  original  morocco  binding,  for  the 
same  tooling  precisely  appears  upon  a 
more  ordinary  copy  of  the  book,  bound 
in  dark-brown  calf  of  which  the  same  li- 
brary is  the  owner.  Special  care  was 
doubtless  taken  with  this  particular  book, 


mmmi**~+* 


mm 


Early  American  Bookbinding 


61 


as  it  was  a  presentation  copy  from  the 
reverend  author  to  "The  Honourable 
Thomas  Huchinson,  Esq.,  Lieut.  Govr., 
&c,  of  The  Province  of  the  Massachu- 
setts Bay  in  NE,"  but  whether  it  was 
bound  in  England  or  this  country  is  a 
question  the  writer  admits  his  inability 
to  answer. 

A  full  account  of  the  Bay  Psalm  Book 
and  of  the  numerous  American,  English 


early  colonial  newspapers  contain,  almost 
without  exception,  advertisements  an- 
nouncing the  preparedness  of  the  printers 
and  publishers  thereof  to  undertake  the 
binding  of  books.  These  paragraphs  re- 
cur as  constantly  as  do  the  now  seem- 
ingly shameful  proclamations  of  rewards 
offered  for  the  return  of  runaway  slaves 
and  notices  of  slaves  for  sale  which,  with 
news  from  Europe  three  to  six  months 


* 


'.'*>»?  *>/rt  l  .  7iO/t/r>: 


&rt'&i<K<>iy<>?ra*Agrnf-<0. 


'W/??  wyvfft'ir 


?',  '</<»  <f/  #J&  %Sn*de* 


and  Scotch  editions  through  which  it 
passed  will  be  found  in  A  History  of 
Music  in  New  England,  by  George 
Hood,  Boston.  1846.  The  last  edition  of 
this  noted  Psalmody  issued  in  this  coun- 
try was  in  the  year  1762. 

Our  first  typographers  were,  as  has 
been  already  stated,  of  necessity  their 
own  bookbinders.     The  columns  of  our 


old,  make  up  the  contents  of  these  little 
weazen-faced,  sallow-complected  four- 
page  journals.  In  Mr.  William  Brad- 
ford's Gazette,  the  following  advertise- 
ment appears  with  the  regularity  of 
clock-work  : 

"Printed  and  sold  by  William  Brad- 
ford in  New  York,  where  advertisements 
arc  taken  in,  and  where  you  may  have  old 


62 


The   Bookman 


books,  neiv  Bound,  cither  Plain  or  Gilt, 
and  Money  for  Linen  Rags." 

The  copy  in  the  Lenox  Library  of  The 
Mohawk  Prayer  Book*  translated  by 
Lawrence  Claesse,  and  printed  by  Brad- 
ford in  1715,  is  believed  to  be  in  its  orig- 
inal binding.  If  this  be  so,  it  supplies,  I 
take  for  granted,  an  example  of  the 
"plain"  bindings  which  our  proto-typog- 
rapher  announces,  as  above,  his  ability  to 
execute.  It  is  a  binding  of  "dull  and 
ugly  plainness"  in  sprinkled  sheep,  the 
edges  spattered  with  red,  but  mind  ye! 
should  you  strip  off  that  old  time-stained 
leather  jacket  and  replace  it  with  one  in 
crushed  levant,  triple-gilt  by  Chambolle, 
Lortic,  or  some  other  Maitre  moderne 
de  Bibliopcgic  du  premier  rang,  you 
would  simply  rob  it  of  at  least  one-half 
its  value  in  the  eyes  of  every  book-an- 
tiquary of  judgment  and  experience. 

Similar  notices  to  the  one  in  William 
Bradford's  Gazette  appear  in  the  Phila- 
delphia American  Weekly  Mercury,  pub- 

*Mohawk  Prayer-Book. 

"The  Morning  and  Evening  Prayer,  the  Lit- 
any, Church  Catechism,  Family  Prayers,  and 
Several  Chapters  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment, translated  into  the  Maliaque  Indian  Lan- 
guage  by  Lawrence  Claesse,  Interpreter  to 
William  Andrews,  Missionary  to  the  Indians, 
from  the  Honourable  and  Reverend  the  Soci- 
ety for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  For- 
eign Parts. 

"Ask  of  me  and  I  will  give  thee  the  Heathen 
for  thine  Inheritance,  and  the  Utmost  Parts  of 
the  Earth  for  thy  Possession,  Psalm  2:8." 

Printed  by  William  Bradford  in  New  York, 
1715- 


lished  by  Andrew  Bradford,  and  in  the 
Pennsylvania  Gazette,  Printed  by  Benja- 
min Franklin,  Post  Master  at  the  Nezv 
Printing  Office  near  the  Market  (Phila- 
delphia), ivhere  advertisements  are  taken 
in  and  bookbinding  is  done  reasonably  in 
the  best  manner." 

William  Parks,  printer  and  publisher 
of  The  Maryland  Gazette  (1729),  like- 
wise puts  himself  forward  as  a  binder  of 
books  in  the  following  language :  "N.B. 
— Old  Books  are  well  bound  by  him," 
and  Henry  De  Foreest  advertises  in  his 
New  York  Evening  Post,  January  17, 
1750,  that  "<7//  sorts  of  blank  books  for 
Merchants  Accompts  are  for  sale  by  the 
printer  thereof,  Also  Old  Books  Neatly 
Bound,  Lettered  or  Gilt  very  expeditious- 
ly." These  extracts,  taken  at  random 
from  the  dusty  files  of  American  journals 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  will  suffice  to 
show  how  generally  in  those  primitive 
times  the  printing  and  the  binding — such 
as  it  was — of  a  book,  were  the  allotted 
task  of  one  individual  or  business  firm. 
As  an  exception  to  prove  this  rule  we 
note  the  advertisement  in  Bradford's  Ga- 
zette, September,  1734,  of  one  Joseph 
Johnson,  that  "he  is  now  set  tip  Book- 


//,/>/./  '(ftien  -> 


binding  for  himself  as  formerly,  and  lives 
in  Dukes  St.  (commonly  called  Bayard 
St. )  near  the  Old-Slip  Market;  (New 
York)  where  all  Persons  in  Town  or 
Country  may  have  their  Books  carefully 
and  neatly  new  Bound  either  Plain  or 
Gilt  reasonable." 

In  Samuel  Willard's  Body  of  Divinity 
(folio),  Boston,  1726,  one  of  the  contro- 
versial writings  of  which  the  literature  of 
Puritan  New  England  so  largely  con- 
sisted, we  have  an  example  of  American 
bookmaking  from  start  to  finish.*     It  is 

*A  Compleat  Body  of  Divinity,  etc..  by  the 
Reverend  and  Learned  Samuel  Willard,  M.A., 


a  large  folio — one  of  the  first  books  of  its 
size  printed  in  New  England — bound  in 
foxy  brown  sheepskin  with  panelled 
sides,  and  so  far  as  the  makers  were  able 
to  accomplish  that  result,  it  is  a  counter- 
part of  cotemporaneous  English  binding. 
We  copied  as  best  we  could,  and  I  fear 
without  proper  acknowledgment,  both 
the  exteriors  and  the  interiors  of  the  pop- 
ular English  books  of  the  day.  As  one 
out  of  many  instances  of  this  practice  that 
might  be  supplied,  we  reproduce  on  a  re- 
Boston,  in  New  England.  Printed  by  B.  Green 
and  S.  Kneeland  for  B.  Eliot  and  D.  Hench- 
man, and  sold  at  their  shops.     MDCCXXVI. 


BINDING   OF    THE    THIRD    EDITION    OF    THE    BAY    PSALM    BOOK. 


The   Bookman 


4— -MTWto 

duced  scale  one  of  the  plates  in  a  London 
(1794)  edition  of  a  little  work  on  the 
Newtonian  system  of  philosophy,  and 
one  from  a  reprint  of  it  published  in  Phil- 
adelphia in  1803.  The  latter  is  illus- 
trated with  exact  reproductions  of  the  en- 
gravings in  the  London  edition,  except 
that  the  plates  are  reversed  and  enlarged 
as  shown  on  pages  48  and  49.  These 
copies  were  engraved  by  William  Rollin- 
son,  an  artist  who  enjoyed  the  unique  dis- 
tinction of  having  chased  the  buttons 
upon  the  coat  worn  by  Washington  at  his 
first  inauguration  as  President  of  the 
United  States  in  Federal  Hall,  New 
York.  Rollinson's  descendants  are  still 
engaged  in  the  business  of  copper-plate 
engraving  in  this  city. 

Isaiah  Thomas,  whose  position  as  the 
foremost  and  most  prolific  ( it  is  said  that 
at  one  time  he  had  sixteen  presses  in  use 
and  owned  eight  book-stores)  of  New 
England's  eighteenth  century  printers,  is 
now  clearly  recognised,  was  author,  an- 
tiquarian, typographer,  paper  manufac- 
turer, bookbinder  and  bookseller  all  in 
one.  Of  which  of  the  disciples  of  Guten- 
berg of  the  present  day  can  all  this  be 
said  ?  That  Thomas  was  also  a  born  bib- 
liophile will.  I  think,  appear  by  what  I 
shall  presently  relate. 


The  proclivity,  amounting  at  times  to  a 
mania,  of  the  ordinary  bookbinder  to 
plough  ruthlessly  through  the  leaves  of 
a  book,  even  though  the  process  involves 
the  snipping  away  of  the  entire  margin 
and  occasionally  of  a  portion  of  the  au- 
thor's text,  is  so  well  known  to  the  fra- 
ternity of  book-collectors  as  to  have  be- 
come proverbial.  Listen  to  friend 
Thomas's  timely  word  of  caution  upon 
this  vital  point ! 

"The  Directions  to  the  Binder"  in  the 
Elegiac  Sonnets  and  Other  Poems  by 
Charlotte  Smith.,  published  by  Thomas 
at  Worcester,  Massachusetts,  in  1795. 
contain,  in  addition  to  careful  instruc- 
tions for  the  placing  of  the  plates,  this 
admonition  to  the  binder:  "Cut  the 
Book  As  Large  Each  Way  As  It  will 
Bear." 

These  "directions"  of  old  Father  Isa- 
iah, with  the  addition  of  a  short  post- 
script to  the  effect,  "Avoid  Whenever 
Possible  Any  Use  of  the  Knife," 
might  well  be  engrossed  in  capital  letters 
and  hung  upon  the  wall  of  every  book- 
binder's shop  in  the  land.  This  biblio- 
pegistic  principle  should  be  impressed 
with  emphasis  upon  the  mind  of  every 
apprentice  to  the  art  of  bookbinding  as 
one  of  the  axioms  of  his  craft. 


I  HIH1HH1 


^^IHH 


./y/,//.,„s,Y*„,/,/,„  /y 


Early  American  Bookbinding 


65 


Thomas  states  in  his  "advertisement" 
that  the  paper  upon  which  the  Elegiac 
Sonnets  of  Charlotte  Smith  is  printed  "is 
a  new  business  in  America,  and  but  late- 
ly introduced  into  Great  Britain;  it  is  the 
first  manufactured  by  the  editor."  He 
further  informs  us  that  the  plates  were 
executed,    not    by    European    engravers 


books  in  a  variety  of  styles  pursuant  to 
the  notice  he  inserted  at  the  foot  of  the 
green  paper  covers,  in  which  the  monthly 
parts  of  the  Royal  American  Magazine, 
edited  and  published  by  him  and  Joseph 
Greenleaf,  were  issued,  to  wit :  "Book- 
binding performed  in  all  its  branches 
with  great  care  and  cheap." 


C^we^/ih-  fe<j/ 


Stye  .J/fs./y ,  />///*>. 

/>3  "faff  /C*  <'ne/i* 


19t0r&0C0. 


rryxnA 


'i«J.  / 


who  settled  in  the  United  States,  but  by 
an  artist  who  obtained  his  knowledge  in 
this  country.  The  book,  therefore,  is 
throughout  of  purely  domestic  manu- 
facture. 

This  eminent  Boston  and  Worcester 
printer,  the  founder,  president  and  bene- 
factor of  the  American  Antiquarian 
Society  (for  which  he  erected  a  build- 
ing at  Worcester, 'Massachusetts),  bound 


Thomas's  chap-books,  such  as  The 
Devil  and  Dr.  Faustus,  were  covered  with 
a  coarse  and  substantial  brown  canvas — a 
coat  of  buckram — than  which,  says  An- 
drew Lang,  there  is  nothing  cheaper, 
neater  or  more  durable.  The  numerous 
children's  books,  Little  Goody  Two 
Shoes,  The  Juvenile  Biographer,  and  the 
like,  which,  issued  from  the  Columbian, 
as  Thomas  named  his  press,  were  clad  in 


66 


The  Bookman 


gay  coats  of  gilt  and  brilliantly  tinted 
papers,  with  intent  to  delight  the  eyes 
and  conjure  the  pennies  from  the  pock- 
ets of  our  grandparents  when  they  were 
yet  in  their  knickerbockers  and  short 
frocks. 


worse  for  wear.  I  have  not  been  able 
to  identify  Thomas's  more  elaborate  bind- 
ings, if  any  such  have  survived  to  our 
time. 

The  German  is  nothing  if  not  conserv- 


Scsan^  lint  eh 


The  plain  leather  bindings  of  Isaiah 
Thomas  are,  I  judge,  represented  by  the 
one  shown  in  our  plate,  which  covers  a 
copy  of  The  Psalms  of  David,  To- 
gether with  Hymns  and  Spiritual  Songs, 
with  Indexes,  and  Tables  complete  by 
Isaac  Watts,  D.D.,  Tsaiali  Thomas,  Wor- 
cester, 1786.  Tt  is  of  sheepskin  over  oak 
boards,    the    former    now    decidedly    the 


ative,  and  his  racial  characteristics  are 
slowly  modified  by  new  environments. 
Consequently,  we  are  prepared  for  the 
Teutonic  plainness  and  solidity  of  the 
brass-knobbed  calf  binding,  with  its 
brass-tipped  leather  clasps,  which  covers, 
as  with  a  coat  of  mail,  the  Gcsang  Bitch, 
printed  at  Germantown,  Pennsylvania,  in 
1762,  by  Christopher  Saner,  2d,  for  the 


L 


Early  American  Bookbinding 


t>7 


spiritual  comfort  of  his  Danker  Breth- 
ren, in  their  vernacular  tongue,  and 
the  black-letter  type  of 'their  Fatherland. 
The  sides  have  a  panel  in  dumb*  or 
blind  tooling,  which  is  a  modest  attempt 
at  decoration,  but  the  book  now  stands  in 
need  of  none,  for  the  rich  mahogany  col- 
our and  glossy  surface  which  the  leather 
has    acquired    through    careful    reverent 


touch,  and  its  strong  and  honest  con- 
struction inspires  one  with  a  feeling  of 
respect  for  both  the  book  and  its  maker. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  history  of  mu- 
sic in  New  England  for  the  first  two  cen- 
turies is  the  history  of  Psalmody  alone. 
It  might  be  asserted  with  equal  truth  that 
the  history  of  bookbinding  in  this  coun- 


©hr  psalms  of  £>atto 


/)rr,/r  /A,,  //.i.  . 


use,  and  the  alchemy  of  time,  make  full 
amends  for  all  other  deficiencies.  This 
sombre-looking  volume,  from  the  hands 
of  the  pre-Revolutionary  typographer,  is 
indeed  a  very  pleasant  thing  to  sight  and 

*"This  is  an  ornamental  operation  applied 
after  the  book  has  been  polished.  It  is  exe- 
cuted in  the  same  way  and  with  the  same  tools 
as  for  gilding,  but  without  any  gold  applied  on 
the  places  thus  ornamented." — Arnctt's  "Bib- 
liopegia." 


try  in  colonial  days  brings  us  in  contact 
with  little  besides  books  of  a  religious 
character.  Bibles,  psalm  and  prayer- 
books,  and  theological  works  almost  mo- 
nopolised the  time  and  services  of  the 
printer.  As  we  turn  from  this  book  of 
sacred  songs,  printed  by  Christopher 
Saner,  the  next  volume  that  falls  under 
our  notice  is  the  Book  of  Books,  namely, 
the  English  version  of  the  Sacred  Writ- 
ings, printed  by  Robert  Aitkin  in  1782. 


68 


The   Bookman 


Robert  Aitkin,  best  known  perhaps,  as 
the  publisher  of  the  Pennsylvania  Maga- 
zine, which  began  and  ended  its  journal- 


Edinburgh.  He  came  to  Philadelphia  in 
1769  as  a  bookseller  ;  returned  to  Scotland 
the   same   year,   but   came   back   to   this 


B*Tili;i)W«<'llHIIIBMIUHlMIBIMU1BU^^ 

^W'-'i«W!ii:i!IH!lilW^ 


Frontispiece  to  Major  Robert  Donkiris  Military 
Collections  and  Remarks 

New  York,  1777 


istic  career  during  that  critical  period  in 
our  national  life,  the  years  1775  and  1776, 
was  born,  we  are  told  by  Isaiah  Thomas, 
at  Dalkeith,  Scotland,  and  served  a  reg- 
ular apprenticeship  with  a  book-binder  in 


country  in  1771  and  followed  the  busi- 
ness of  bookselling  and  bookbinding 
both  before  and  after  the  Revolutionary 
War.  In  1774  he  became  a  printer,  and 
in  1781-82  printed,  at  a  very  considerable 


Early  American  Bookbinding 


69 


pecuniary  loss,  upon  a  poor  quality  of  pa- 
per manufactured  in  the  State  of  Penn- 
sylvania, an  edition  in  small  octavo  of  The 
Holy  Bible,  which  is  claimed  and  gener- 
ally conceded  to  be  the  first  version  of 
the  Scriptures  in  English  published  in 
this  country ;  but  in  Isaiah  Thomas's  ac- 
count, in  his  History  of  Printing,  of  the 
Boston  printers,  Kneeland  and  Green,  we 
find  the  following  statement   (Vol.  I,  p. 

305^: 

"The  booksellers  of  this  time  were  en- 
terprising. Kneeland  and  Green  printed, 
principally  for  Daniel  Henchman,  an  edi- 
tion of  the  Bible  in  small  4to.  This  was 
the  first  Bible  printed  in  the  English  lan- 
guage in  America.  It  was  carried 
through  the  press  as  privately  as  possible, 
and  had  the  London  imprint  of  the  copy 
from  which  it  was  reprinted,  viz. :  'Lon- 
don. Printed  by  Mark  Baskett,  Printer 
to  the  King's  Most  Excellent  Majesty,' 
in  order  to  prevent  a  prosecution  from 
those  in  England  and  Scotland,  who  pub- 
lished the  Bible  by  a  patent  from  the 
Crown ;  or  cum  privilegio,  as  did  the 
English  universities  of  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge. When  I  was  an  apprentice  I 
often  heard  those  who  had  assisted  at  the 
case  and  press  in  printing  this  Bible 
make  mention  of  the  fact.  The  late  Gov- 
ernor Hancock  was  related  to  Henchman, 
and  knew  the  particulars  of  the  transac- 
tion. He  possessed  a  copy  of  this  im- 
pression. As  it  has  a  London  imprint,  at 
this  day  it  can  be  distinguished  from  an 
English  edition  of  the  same  date  only 
by  those  who  are  acquainted  with  the 
niceties  of  typography.  This  Bible  is- 
sued from  the  press  about  the  time 
that  the  partnership  of  Kneeland  and 
Green  expired.  The  edition  was  not 
large.  I  have  been  informed  that  it 
did  not  exceed  seven  or  eight  hundred 
copies." 

This  story  is  doubted  by  Bancroft  and 
other  historians,  but  Thomas  was  an  au- 
thor of  more  than  ordinary  accuracy  and 
reliability,  and  some  there  are  who,  hav- 
ing investigated  the  matter,  are  inclined 
to  the  belief  that  an  edition  of  the  Bible 


was  surreptitiously  printed  by  Kneeland 
and  Green  as  Thomas  relates. 

Two  copies  of  the  first  volume  of  the 
Aitkin  Bible  are  preserved  in  the  Lenox 
Library.  One  is  bound  in  smooth  red, 
the  other  in  olive  morocco ;  the  back  of 
the  latter  being  tooled  in  a  style  faintly 
suggestive  of  the  lace-like  pattern  char- 
acteristic of  the  bindings  of  the  great 
French  bibliopegist,  Padeloup  Le  Jeune. 
The  back  of  the  copy  in  red  morocco  is 
decorated  with  a  design  similar  in  char- 
acter to  that  upon  the  sides  of  the  copy 
of  ll'atts's  Hymns  and  Spiritual  Songs, 
to  which  we  shall  shortly  refer.  These 
bindings  are  unsigned,  but  it  may  be  pre- 
sumed that  they  represent  Aitkin's  skill 
in  the  dual  capacity  of  printer  and  book- 
binder. 

Another  of  the  books  in  the  Lenox  Li- 
brary, the  binding  upon  which  might  at  a 
venture  be  taken  to  illustrate  a  minor 
phase  of  our  subject,  is  a  copy  of  Major 
Donkin's  Military  Collections,  printed  by 
Hugh  Gaine,  New  York,  1777.  It  is  an 
octavo  bound  in  red  skiver  (split  sheep- 
skin), without  the  slightest  attempt  at  or- 
namentation ;  but  aside  from  the  binding 
the  book  is  interesting  for  its  allegorical 
frontispiece,  said  to  represent  Hugh,  Earl 
Percy,  being  rewarded  by  Britannia,  with 
Major  Donkin  seated  at  a  table  (Donkin 
was  a  major  in  the  British  army  serving 
in  America  in  1777),  engraved  by  J. 
Smither,  an  artist  whom  Dunlap  asserts 
occupied  a  unique  position  in  the  arts  of 
his  time.  He  was,  writes  the  author  of 
the  History  of  the  Rise  and  Progress  of 
the  Arts  of  Design  in  the  United  States, 
originally  a  gun  engraver,  and  employed 
in  the  Tower  of  London.  He  came  to 
Philadelphia  in  1773  and  undertook  all 
kinds  of  engraving.  He  probably  stood 
high  in  public  opinion ;  he  was  the  best, 
for  he  stood  alone.  We  do  not  clearly 
comprehend  this  singular  assertion,  for 
certainly  there  were  others,  such  as  Doo- 
little,  Hill,  Turner  and  Trenchard, 
among  Smither's  contemporaries  whose 
engravings  appear  to  us  to  equal,  if  not 
to  excel,  his  work. 


(To  be  concluded.) 


EARLY  AMERICAN   BOOKBINDING 

AND    KINDRED    SUBJECTS. 

By  William   Loring  Andrews. 

{Concluded. ) 


If  this  book  of  Major  Donkin  was 
bound  by  the-  printer  of  it,  as  may  possi- 
bly be  the  case,  we  have  here  an  example 
of  Hugh  Gaine's  plain  morocco  binding, 
and  perchance  we  may  also  attribute  to 
him  the  binding,  in  olive  morocco  gilt, 
on  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  Hugh 
Gaine,  Printer,  at  the  Sign  of  the  Bible 
in  Hanover  Square,  New  York,  1793,  in 
the  possession  of  Mr.  Beverly  Chew. 
This  edition,  which  was  published  by  di- 
rection of  the  General  Convention  of  the 
Episcopal  Church,  the  same  printer,  fol- 
lowed, two  years  later,  by  one  in  large 
folio,  for  use  at  the  lectern  of  the  Church. 
It  is  printed  in  bold,  clear  type,  and  hand- 
somely bound  in  mottled  and  sprinkled 
calf.  It  is  probably  as  fine  a  piece  of 
typography  as  ever  issued  from  the  press 
of  the  "turn-coat"  printer,  who  was  de- 
servedly made  to  say  in  a  poetical  version 
of  his  petition  at  the  close  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary War, 

And    I    always    adhere    lo    the    sword    that    is 

longest 
And     stick    to     the    parly     that's    like    to    be 

strongest. 

If  Gaine's  political  principles  and  rule  of 
action  had  been  as  sound  as  the  printing 
of  this  folio  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  he 
would  have  left  a  less  unsavory  memory. 
A  copy  of  this  noble  Episcopal  Church 
Service  bonk  presented  by  the  Scotch 
merchant,  Robert  Lenox,  "to  his  most  re- 
spected friend,  James  Sheafe,"  in  1812, 
may  be  seen   in  the  library    founded  and 


endowed  by  his  Presbyterian  book-loving 
and  philanthropic  son. 

Among  the  countless  hymn  books 
which  have  voiced  the  faith,  trust  and 
hope  of  English-speaking  Christians  for 
ages  past  is  a  small  octavo,  printed  in  Ed- 
inburgh in  1776  which  bears  the  follow- 
ing title : 

HYMNS    AND    SPIRITUAL    SONGS    IN 
THREE  BOOKS. 

I.     Collected  from  the  Scriptures. 

II.     Composed  on  Divine  Subjects. 

III.     Prepared  for  the  Lord's  Supper. 

The  binding  on  the  copy  of  this  hymnal, 
which  lies  before  us,  might  readily  be  at- 
tributed to  an  English  binder,  and  the 
dark  crimson  morocco  in  which  it  is  en- 
cased was  undoubtedly  an  imported  arti- 
cle, as  also  must  have  been  the  binder's 
tools  employed  in  its  decoration.  Its 
native  workmanship  is,  however,  estab- 
lished by  the  inscription  upon  the  fly-leaf, 
which  certifies  that  this  was  "Hannah 
Boudinot's  book,  bound  and  gilt  at  Tren- 
ton, 1785." 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  artisan 
who,  at  this  early  period,  was  able  to  pro- 
duce a  binding  of  so  creditable  a  charac- 
ter remains  unknown.  He  left  his  work 
unsigned,  but  this  is  as  we  might  ex- 
pect, for  the  bibliopegists  of  all  times 
have  been  a  modest  race  of  men,  quite 
content  apparently  to  quietly  pursue  their 
calling  and  "wake  up  each  morning  to 
still  find  themselves  obscure."     The  dam- 


Early  American  Bookbinding 


165 


ask,  velvet  and  pigskin  bindings  of  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  were 
frequently  stamped  with  the  initials  or 
trade-marks  of  the  binder  or  gilder,  but 
the  names  which  either  rightfully  or 
wrongfully  we  have  connected  with  the 


In  the  same  class  and  order  of  merit 
as  the  binding  upon  Hannah  Boudinofs 
Hymn  Book,  but  of  a  different  style  of 
decoration,  is  the  one  upon  a  thick  paper 
copy  of  The  Federalist*  in  the  Lenox  Li- 
brary, printed  and  bound,  as  the  ticket 


_-/  */r/  */</ 


'/*<■*  t-r   '  l  . 


several  predominant  styles  of  book-cover 
decoration,  w  hich  have  been  pronounced 
*'as  incapable  of  further  development  or 
of  finer  expression,"  and  of  which  we 
never  weary,  are  seldom  found  upon  the 
bindings  attributed  to  these  masters ;  and 
in  order  to  decipher  the  minute  charac- 
ters, in  which  the  signature  of  the  modern 
bibliopegist  is  all  but  concealed.,  at  the 
foot  of  the  inside  cover,  one  almost  re- 
quires the  use  of  a  magnifving  glass. 


within  it  attests,  at  Franklin's  Head,  41 
Hanover  Square,  New  York.  It  is  in 
sprinkled  calf,  full  gilt,  as  a  cataloguer 
would  describe  it.  the  sides  ornamented 
with  a  scroll  border  and  an  oval  centre- 
piece, in  the  "Etruscan"  style,  so-called, 
a  style  common  to  the  architecture,  the 

*The  Federalist :  A  Collection  of  Essays 
Written  in  Favour  of  the  New  Constitution.  2 
volumes.  Printed  and  sold  by  J.  &  A.  M'Lean, 
No.  41  Hanover  Square,  1788. 


silverware,  and  the  furniture  of  the  pe- 
riod, as  well  as  to  the  exterior  decoration 
of  the  covers  of  books  which  inherited 
its  graceful  lines,  festoons  and  scrolls 
from  the  Greek,  and  should  be  recognised 
as  classical,  but  is  generally  known  to  us 
only  by  the  much-used  and  abused  term 
"colonial."  We  find  similar  tools  em- 
ployed and  a  like  design  upon  the  cover 
of  a  copy  of  the  American  edition  of 
Brown's  Illustrated  Family  Bible*  bound 
in  red  morocco,  which  material  alone  ele- 
vates it  to  higher  rank  as  a  binding  than 
The  Federalist,  bound  in  calf.  The  back 
of  this  cumbersome  elephant  folio  Bible 
is  panelled  in  blue  and  yellow  leathers, 
separated  by  bands  of  green,  the  whole 
richly  tooled  in  gold  "a  petits  fers."  The 
upper  panel  bears  the  title  of  the  book, 
the  lower  one  the  name  of  the  first  owner, 
Mary  Ellis,  1792,  whose  signature  also 
appears  upon  the  fly-leaf  under  date  of 
August  12,  1793.  This  mosaic  binding, 
for  such  it  is,  was  produced  by  Thomas 
Allen,  book-seller,  stationer  and  printer, 
as  he  is  described  in  the  New  York  Di- 
rectory  for  the  same  year,  and  has  his 
ticket  on  the  inside  of  the  front  cover: 

Bound  and  Sold  by  Thomas  Allen, 
No.  12  Queen  Street. 

Thomas  Greenleaf's  semi-weekly  pa- 
per, The  New  York  Journal  &  Patriotic 

The  Self-interpreting  Bible.  New  York: 
Printed  for  T.  Mini,  u  Queen  Street,  1792. 
Illustrated  with  copper-plate  engravings  by 
Tieboul  and  others. 


Register,  contains  in  the  number  for 
June  18,  1790,  an  announcement  of  this 
forthcoming  publication  which  reads  in 
part  as  follows : 

"Brown's  Self -inter  peting  Folio  Fam- 
ily Bible,  embellished  with  a  variety  of 
elegant  Copper-Plates,  Being  a  genuine 
American  Edition,  the  largest  and  cheap- 
est ever  proposed  to  be  printed  in  the 
United  States. 

"Proposals  for  printing  by  Subscrip- 
tion By  Hodge,  Allen  &  Campbell,  of 
N.  Y.  The  Holy  Bible  containing  The 
Old  and  New  Testaments  with  the  Book 
of  the  Apocrypha,  illustrated  with  notes, 
&c.  By  John  Brown,  D.D.  Late  Minis- 
ter of  the  Gospel  at  Haddington,  .  .  . 
will  be  printed  in  large  folio  on  fine 
paper,  American  manufacture,  and  on  ex- 
cellent, large  and  new  type  cast  on  pur- 
pose for  this  work. 

"It  will  be  completed  in  forty  numbers, 
one  every  two  weeks,  price  One  Quarter 
of  a  Dollar  or  Twenty-five  Cents." 

Quite  as  creditable  to  its  author,  and 
belonging  to  the  same  period  as  the  bind- 
ing above  mentioned,  is  the  one  upon 
Washington's  own  copy  of  The  Contrast 
(Philadelphia,  mdccxc),  a  comedy  writ- 
ten  by   Royal   Tyler,*   of  Vermont,   for 

*Thr  Contrast  was  written  by  Royal  Tyler 
of  Vermont  for  Thomas  Wignell,  the  come- 
dian, by  whom  it  was  produced  with  consider- 
able success  in  New  York.  Philadelphia  and 
Baltimore.  He  took  the  part  of  Jonathan, 
written  expressly  for  him,  and  a  much  more 
accurate  representation  of  a  real  Yankee  than 
any  of  the  modern  caricatures.  It  was  pub- 
lished for  subscribers  only.   .    .    .  Royal  Tyler 


Thomas  Wignell,  Comedian,  now  in  the 

possession  of  Mr.  S.  P.  Avery,  a  book 
made  doubly  valuable  by  having  the  great 
chieftain's  bold,  clear  signature  upon  the 
title-page.  It  is  a  royal  octavo,  bound  in 
a  hard,  close-textured,  highly  polished 
dark  red  morocco,  the  sides  inlaid  with 
green  borders,  with  ornamental  gilt  scroll 
tooling.  The  back  of  the  volume  is  elab- 
orately gilt-tooled  with  small  stamps,  one 
of  which  is  the  acorn  a  tool  so  frequently 
used  by  the  Mearnes  (the  distinguished 
English  bibliopegist  predecessors  of 
Roger  Payne),  as  to  have  become  consid- 
ered as  reliable  an  indication  of  their 
work,  as  is  the  "sausage"  pattern  which 
appears  upon  so  many  of  the  bindings 
attributed  to  them. 

Positive  proof  that  this  binding  was 
executed  in  this  country  is  lacking,  but 
appearances  and  the  circumstantial  evi- 
dence in  the  case  point  to  that  conclusion. 

'["his  comedy  in  five  acts  by  Royal  Ty- 
ler, which  claims  to  be  the  first  Essay 
of  American  Genius  in  the  Dramatic 
Art,  has  become  exceedingly  rare,  not- 
withstanding the  fact  that,  as  the  printed 
list  of  subscribers  shows,  the  edition  con- 
sisted of  at  least  600  copies.  It  contains 
a  curious  and  interesting  frontispiece,  en- 
was  a  genuine  wit.  He  was  aid  to  the  Gov.  of 
Mass.  in  the  Shays  rebellion,  and  followed 
the  rebels  into  Vt..  where  he  settled  and  be- 
came eminent  in  public  life.  He  was  a  law- 
yer and  judge.  He  wrote  the  Algerinc  Ca[>- 
tive,  and  many  articles  for  the  Polyanthus  and 
other  Journals. — Dec.  .3,  1876." 

Copy  of  manuscript  note  inserted  in  the 
book. 


graved  by  Maverick. *  after  a  painting  by 
William  Dunlap,  which,  as  a  manuscript 
note  in  the  volume  states,  comprises  five 
portraits,  the  persons  being  dressed  as  in 
the  scene,  viz.,  Mr.  Wignell.  as  Brother 
Jonathan  ;  Mr.  Henry,  as  Colonel  Manly  ; 
Mr.  Hallam,  as  Dimple;  Mr.  Morris,  as 
Van  Rough  :  and  Mrs.  Morris,  as  Char- 
lotte. 

The  American  Latin  Grammar,  or  a 
compleat  Introduction  to  the  Latin 
Tongue,  which  is  shown  in  our  illustra- 
tion, is  undoubtedly  in  its  original 
boards,  which  are,  as  may  be  seen,  as  per- 
fect, sound  and  true  as  when  first  ap- 
plied ;  and  they  have  had  to  withstand  the 
exceptionally  hard  usage  which  falls  to 
the  lot  of  school  and  text-books.  These 
oaken  boards  continued  in  general  use  by 
binders  down  to  the  close  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  and  for  some  time  after- 
ward, were  not  altogether  superseded 
by  the  cardboards  now  universally  em- 
ployed. The  manner  in  which  these  thin 
veneers  of  wood  have  retained  their 
shape  is  quite  remarkable.  They  have 
neither  warped  nor  cracked  through  all 
these  years,  and  have  successfully  defied 
alike  the  cold  and  dampness  of  the 
mouldy  cellars  and  the  heat  of  the  sun- 
scorched  garrets  into  which  they  were 
flung  to  neglect.  Moreover,  they  have 
proved  a  somewhat  better  barrier  than 
their  pasteboard  successors  to  the  ravages 
of  the  book-worm  ;   for  are  we  not   told 

*This  must.  I  judge,  have  been  Peter  R. 
Maverick,  the  first  of  that  noted  family  of  en- 
gravers and  copper-plate  printers. 


that  the  Ptinida?  generally  are  not  borers 
of  wood?  the  chief  mischief-maker  m  this 
material  being  that  minute  insect  to 
which  entomologists  have  given  the  alto- 
o-ether  disproportionate  name  of  Hypoth- 
%,emus  eruditus  Westwood,  or  the  Hy- 
pothenemus  hispedus,  as  it  is  described 
bv  Dr  Le  Conte  in  Trans.  Amer.  Entom. 
S'oc,  t868,  p.  156— Satis  verborutn! 

"The  Columbian  Harmonist,  A  Choice 
Collection  of  New  Psalm  Times  of 
American  Composition,"  by  Daniel  Read, 
New    Haven,    Connecticut,    1793.    which 


lies  before  us,  is  clad  in  its  original  home- 
ly, but  what  has  proved  to  be  a  fairly 
serviceable,  coat  of  brown  sheepskin.  It 
makes  no  bibliopegistic  pretensions  what- 
ever, and  simplv  represents  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  bindings  of  the  day.  This 
quaint  old  Psalm  Singer,  which  belongs 
to  an  age  when  the  "singing  of  psalms 
was  an  act  of  devotion  and  not  an  amuse- 
ment among  the  people,"  "sings  of  simple 
pieties,"  and  is  as  plain  and  unadorned 
within  as  without;  but  doubtless  the 
voung  men  of  the  village  church  choir 


rbiMtipi 

■ 


Early  American  Bookbinding 


169 


lifted  up  their  voices  as  lustily  in  "Old 
Hundredth,"  and  the  rustic  maidens, 
their  fair  associates,  chanted  the  Easter 
Anthem  as  sweetly,  from  the  coarsely 
engraved  score  of  this  brown  and  bat- 
tered Harmonist  as  if  it  had  been  cut 
on  copper  by  a  master  hand,  adorned 
with  a  frontispiece  by  Hogarth,  and 
bound  in  French  gros-grained  bright  red 
morocco,  elegantly  ornamented  like  unto 
the  binding  here  displayed,  which  Fran- 


hand   already   made    willing   captives   by 
the  dare-devil  Brom  Van  Brunt. 

By  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century 
it  is  evident  that  the  arts  of  printing  and 
bookbinding  had  come  to  a  parting  of 
the  ways,  and  that  the  bindery,  sanguine 
of  its  ability  to  walk  alone,  had  begun  to 
take  upon  itself  the  risks  and  responsi- 
bilities of  a  separate  establishment.  The 
New  York  Citv  Directories  of  the  closing 


cis  Bedford  placed,  at  a  cost  of  nine 
guineas,  upon  another  book  of  soulful 
melody,  to  wit,  Mr.  Leveridge's  Collec- 
tion of  Songs  with  the  Mustek,  London, 
1727.  It  must  have  been  from  a  coun- 
terpart of  this  Introduction  to  Psalmody, 
by  Mr.  Read,  "fitly  calculated  for  the  use 
of  Singing-Schools,"  that  the  lank,  long- 
shanked  schoolmaster,  Ichabod  Crane, 
instructed  the  sweet  and  buxom  Ka- 
trina  in  the  divine  art  of  music  whilst  he 
was  laying  fruitless  siege  to  the  heart  and 


vcars  of  the  eighteenth  century,  contain 
the  names  of  a  number  of  individuals, 
among  them  the  following,  who  style 
themselves  simply  bookbinders,  although 
some  of  them  were  also  stationers  and 
printers ; 

John  Black.  20  Little  Queen  (Cedar)   Street. 
Alexander  Christie.  15  Cliff  Street. 
Charles  Cliland.  15  Madison  Street. 
Peter  Kirby.  44  Crown   (Liberty)    Street. 
Robert  Macgill,  212  Water  Street. 


170 


The   Bookman 


John  Reed.   17  Water  Street. 
Edward  Wier,  52  Maiden  Lane. 
Robert  Hodge.  38  Maiden  Lane. 
Benjamin  Gomez,  32  Maiden  Lane. 

The  advertisement  of  the  last-named  in 
the  New  York  Journal  &  Patriotic  Regis- 
ter for  the  year  1791  reads  as  follows: 

Book-binding  carried  on  with  neatness  and 
dispatch.  Orders  from  the  country  will  be 
carefully  attended  to. 

That  the  typographers  were,  however, 
disinclined  to  abandon  the  field  to  special- 
ists in  bibliopegy  is  shown  by  this  adver- 
tisement, clipped  from  the  New  York 
Journal  for  December  21,  1791  : 

Binding.  Gilding  &  Blank-book  Ruling  Per- 
formed in  the  neatest  manner,  and  with  the 
utmost  expedition  at  Greenleaf's,  No.  196 
Water  St. 

Tn  order  to  give  the  most  ample  satisfacton 
to  his  customers  in  his  general  business,  as 
binding  is  closely  allied  with  printing,  Mr. 
Greenleaf  has  engaged  a  complete  binder, 
gilder,  and  ruler  at  an  extraordinary  salary. 
and  will  engage  that  every  one  who  may  be 
pleased  to  employ  him  shall  be  satisfied,  or  no 
pay;  and  that  all  the  work  which  may  be  done 
shall  be  charged  quite  as  low  as  the  current 
prices.    .    .    . 

N.  B. — A  few  well-dressed  calf  skins  for 
sale.     Wanted,    several   hundred    Sheep    Skins. 


These  establishments  were  probably 
able  to  produce  litte  beyond  the  mercan- 
tile bindings  upon  blank  books,  or  work 
of  a  simple  character,  although  some  of 
the  handsome  bindings  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  binders  of  the  time  were  capable 
of  executing  may  have  issued  therefrom. 
Who  knows?  Admitting,  however,  that 
the  chances  are  that  these  men  plied  their 
tools  with  little  skill,  all  the  same  we  are 
L^lad   to   recognize   them   as   members   in 

g 1  and  regular  standing  of  the  Guild 

of  Bookbinders.  Little  Brothers  of  the 
Honourable  Order  of  the  (due-Pot  and 
Pack  Thread,  we  salute  you ! 

An  earnest  and  creditable  attempt  to 
improve  the  arts  employed  in  the  produc- 
tion of  books  was  made  during  the  few 
short  years  of  its  existence  by  the  Amer- 
ican Company  of  Book-Sellers,*  an  asso- 
ciation of  book-sellers  in  New  York. 
Philadelphia  and  Boston,  founded  in  1801 
and  dissolved  in  1805.  Annual  fairs 
were  held  by  this  organization  in  Xew 
York  City,  Philadelphia  and  Newark, 
X.  J.,  at  which  premiums  were  offered 
for  the  best  examples  of  paper,  printing, 
ink,  typography  and  bookbinding.  In 
1805  a  gold  medal  of  the  value  of  $50  was 
awarded  to  one  William  Swain  of  New 

*See  Book-Trade  Bibliographv  in  the  United 
States  in  the  XlXth  Century.  By  A.  Growoll. 
Xew  York.    1898. 


Early  American  Bookbinding 


171 


York  for  the  best  specimen  of  binding 
executed  in  American  leather.  Mr. 
Swain,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  left  no  mark 
of  identification  upon  his  handiwork,  so 
that  we  snail  never  know  how  meritori- 
ous were  the  bindings  that  sufficed  to  win 
for  him,  in  the  early  dawn  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  this  bibliopegic  prize. 

Books  which  contain  the  ticket  of  an 
American  binder  are  so  few  and  far  be- 
tween that  I  am  disposed  to  make  a  note 
of  even  the  unimportant  example  of  the 
art  of  bookbinding,  to  which  is  affixed 
the  following  label : 


BOUND    AT 

I'VRSON'S    BINDERY, 

Where    binding    is    executed 

in  its  various  branches. 

PATENT    RULING 

Done   in   the   neatest   manner. 

HUDSON",   x.    v. 


This  little  duodecimo  Book  of  Psalms, 
printed  in  1805,  is  bound  in  dark  red  mo- 
rocco, gilt  edges,  with  a  simple  decora- 
tion upon  the  back,  which   is  sufficient. 


however,  to  lift  it  out  of  the  grade  of 
commercial  bindings,  and  prove  that  Air. 
Parsons  was  not  a  mere  cobbler  of  books. 
More,  however,  of  an  adept  at  his  craft 
was  one  Benjamin  Olds,  as  is  demon- 
strated by  the  binding  in  red  morocco 
gilt  on  a  copy  of  the  By-Laz^s  and  Rules 
of  the  Society  of  the  Cincinnati,  Trenton, 
1808,  in  which  a  modest  little  label  one- 
quarter  the  size  of  the  following  appears  : 


BENJAMIN    OLDS 

BOOK-BINDER  &  STATIONER 

SIGN    OF    THE    BIBLE 

NEWARK 


One  of  the  most  ornate  signed  bindings 
of  this  period  which  has  come  to  my  no- 
tice is  one  upon  the  presentation  copy 
from  the  city  of  Xew  York  to  Robert 
Lenox  of  Colden's  Memoirs  of  the  Erie 
Canal  Celebration,  Xew  York.  1825.  It 
is  bound  in  red  straight-grained  morocco, 
with  wide  rolled  bands,  partly  blind- 
tooled  and  partly  gilt.  The  panel  back 
is  elaborately  tooled,  and  at  the  foot  is 
the  signature  of  the  binders,  Wilson  & 
Nichols,  whose  names  appear  in  Long- 


I  72 


The   Bookman 


ivorth's  New  York  City  Directory  for 
1826-j,  as  engaged  in  business  at  Pine 
Street,  corner  of  Broadway.  The  same 
directory  contains  the  name  of  William 
Walker,  32  Eldridge  Street,  at  whose 
bindery,  or  that  of  his  sons,  removed  to 
Fulton  Street,  the  writer  remembers  to 


lishment  the  reputation  it  enjoyed  as  a 

bindery. 

I  regret  that  I  cannot  give  the  names 
of  the  binders  of  the  little  three- 
volume  Herodotus,  New  York.  1828. 
which  recently  fell  into  my  hands,  and 


have  had  some  of  his  earliest  bindings 
executed.  No  examples  of  their  skill,  or 
rather  the  lack  of  it.  are,  however,  now  in 
my  possession.  It  was  a  heavy  and  in- 
artistic binding,  only  one  remove — 
namely,  that  of  the  substitution  of  calf- 
skin or  morocco  for  Russia  leather — 
from  the  bindings  in  which  the  firm  en- 
cased the  heavy  clay-books,  journals  and 
ledgers  which,  I  judge,  constituted  their 
principal  business,  and  won  for  the  estab- 


the  copy  of  The  Minstrel  and  Other 
Poems,  by  B.  A.  Eaton,  Boston,  1833,  be- 
longing to  Mr.  Beverly  Chew,  for  they 
are  at  least  an  approach  to  the  bindings 
which  the  collector  accepts  and  places  on 
his  shelves  because  they  are  examples,  if 
not  elaborate  ones,  of  bookbinding  prac- 
tised as  an  art,  and  not  as  a  trade.  The 
design  on  The  Minstel  is  surprisingly  Al- 
dirie  in  character,  and  cleanly  tooled. 
Only  bindings,  in  part  at  least,  tooled  by 


Early  American  Bookbinding 


'73 


hand  rank  as  artistic  in  a  bibliophile's  es- 
timation, i.e.,  those  bindings  the  decora- 
tion upon  which  is  first  designed  and 
drawn  upon  paper,  then  transferred  to 
the  leather  and  worked  out  either  with 
small  tools  or  by  these  in  combination 
with  rolls,  fillets  and  panel  blocks.  It  is 
not  intended,  however,  by  this  statement 
to  convey  the  impression  that  a  stamped 
binding  is  entirely  devoid  of  artistic  qual- 
ity. In  the  production  of  a  stamped  bind- 
ing taste  in  design,  as  well  as  a  high  de- 
gree of  mechanical  skill  and  accuracy, 
may  be  displayed.  The  brass  die  which 
impresses  the  design  must  be  made  by  the 
process  known  in  the  printing  of  engrav- 
ings as  overlaying,*  to  operate  upon  a 
perfectly  plane  surface,  otherwise  the  im- 
pression in  the  leather  will  he  of  uneven 
depth,  to  the  absolute  ruin  of  the  design. 
The  registry  must  also  he  exact,  for  an 
impression  must  first  be  taken  in  dumb, 
or  blind,  tooling,  the  same  as  in  hand 
work.  The  gold  leaf  is  then  applied,  and 
the  hook  again  subjected  to  the  heavy 
heated  press.  The  hack,  if  decorated 
when  on  the  book,  must  be  tooled  by 
hand.  A  stamped  hack,  in  either  cloth 
or  leather,  generally  indicates  that  the 
cover  is  simply  a  machine-made  case,  at- 
tached to  the  book  with  glue  after  the 
leaves  have  been  sewn  together;  but  the 
leather  may  be  stamped  with  the  design 
before  it  is  applied  to  the  cover  and  then 
drawn  over  the  boards,  which  are  laced 
to  the  book,  as  in  fine-tooled  binding. 

The  principal  items  of  expense  in  con- 
nection with  a  stamped  binding  are  the 
designing  and  cutting  of  the  die.  If  ap- 
plied to  but  one  book,  it  might  prove  a 
more  costly  binding  than  one  in  which 
the  same  design  was  tooled  by  hand.  The 
economy  results  where  long  sets  of  books 
uniformly  bound  and  decorated  are  con- 
cerned. 

As  an  example  on  a  small  scale  of 
American  stamped  binding  executed  in 
the  early  part  of  the  last  century,  we  have 
reproduced  one  which  covers  a  copy  of 
the  poetical  works  of  Robert  Burns, 
Xew  York,  1813.  The  fac-simile  of  the 
National  Portrait  Gallery]  binding  which 

*Over1aying  consists  in  pasting  exactly 
where  needed  successive  layers  of  paper,  un- 
derneath the  tympan,  or  top  sheet,  of  the  print- 
ins;  surface. 

""The  National  Portrait  Gallery  of  Distin- 
guished   Americans,"    conducted   by   James   B. 


follows  shows  how  elaborate  these 
stamped  bindings  became  at  a  later  pe- 
riod, and  how  well  they  were  designed 
and  engraved. 

The  National  Portrait  Gallery  of 
Distinguished  Americans,  Philadelphia, 
1846,  is  a  book  which  deserves  to  be  well 
bound,  for  it  contains  the  finest  cabinet- 
size  steel-engraved  portraits  ever  exe- 
cuted in  this  country.  This  truth  we 
have  been  slow  to  recognise,  as  also  the 
fact  that  the  book  is  becoming  difficult 
to  find,  for  the  reason  that  for  years  past 
copies  innumerable  have  been  despoiled 
of  their  prints  by  "extra  illustrators,"  to 
whom  the  four  quarto  volumes,  with 
their  nearly  150  very  useful  portraits, 
have  proved  a  veritable  gold  mine.  From 
both  an  historical  and  artistic  standpoint 
the  National  Portrait  Gallery  was  an  im- 
portant publication,  and  it  is  natural  to 
suppose  that  certain  sets  of  it  would  be 
entrusted  to  the  hands  of  the  best  binders 
of  the  day.  The  cover  we  reproduce 
shows  how  capable,  both  in  design  and 
execution,  were  the  stamp-cutters  of 
those  days.  The  classical  medallion  in 
the  centre  links  it  in  a  degree  to  the 
highly  prized  bindings  said  to  have  be- 
longed to  Demetrio  Canevari,  physician 
to  Pope  Urban  VIII. 

The  period  from  1820  to  late  in  the 
'50's  was  prolific  of  a  class  of  books 
the  popularity  of  which  simply  re- 
flected a  contemporary  English  taste, 
and  shows  that  in  matters  literary  and 
artistic  we  were  still  in  leading  strings. 
These  annuals,  Offerings  of  Friendship, 
Tokens,  Talismans  and  Souvenirs,  as 
they  were  sentimentally  entitled,  were  is- 
sued by  the  publishers  in  stamped  cloth, 
morocco,  or  calfskin,  overlaid  with  glit- 
tering gold  foil.  They  are  equally,  if 
not  more,  valuable  for  their  text  and  illus- 
trations than  as  examples  of  book- 
binding, for  they  contain  some  of  the  best 
steel  line  engravings  to  be  found  in  the 
books  of  their  own  or  any  subsequent  pe- 
riod. It  is  the  admirable  work  of  such 
engravers    as    the    Mavericks,    Durand, 


Longacre,  Philadelphia :  and  James  Herring. 
Xew  York-,  Under  the  superintendence  of  the 
American  Academy  of  Fine  Arts.  4  vols., 
royal    8vo   and    quarto 

James  R.  Longacre,  Philadelphia.  1846.  Con- 
tains 144  steel  line  engravings,  each  accompa- 
nied by  a  short  biographical  notice. 


J74 


The   Bookman 


(  honey,  Balch,  Pease  and  Hatch  after 
paintings  by  Newton,  Leslie,  Inman, 
Morse,  Mount  and  other  American  paint- 
ers of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, whose  charming  genre  pictures,  the 
writer  ventures  to  assert,  none  of  their 
successors  have  surpassed.  The  essays, 
tales  and  poems  which  these  engravings 
accompany  and  illustrate  were  contrib- 
uted by  some  of  the  foremost  writers  of 
the  day. 

These  annuals,  for  years  in  the  height 
of  fashion,  passed  away  with  the  Civil 
War,  which  changed  for  better  or  for 
worse  the  old  order  of  things  in  so  many 
respects,  and  poorer  books  have  taken 
their  place  ;  for  these  gift  books  were  hon- 
estly constructed,  and  the  arts  applied  to 
them  were  legitimate  and  true,  which  is 
more  than  can  be  claimed  for  many,  if 
not  most,  of  the  books  which  have  suc- 
ceeded them.  These  "Gifts  and  Keep- 
sakes," antiquated  as  they  have  become, 
are.  however,  no  longer  entirely  neg- 
lected. They  are  sought  by  collectors 
with  some  avidity,  for  they  are  interest- 
ing as  mirrors  of  the  simple  living  and 
quiet  thinking  of  their  age;  and,  more- 
over, they  have  become  somewhat  scarce, 
and  this  is — shall  we  admit  it? — a  sine 
qua  uon  with  the  collector  of  every  spe- 
cies. 

We  now  come  to  an  exhibition  of  Yan- 
kee ingenuity  applied  to  bibliopegy, 
which  might  be  described  as  book-cover 
decoration  made  easy.  But  the  name  be- 
stowed upon  the  process  by  its  shrewd 
inventor  is  "Patent  Stereographic  Bind- 
ing." The  presumed  advantage  of  the 
process  was,  I  understand,  the  facility 
with  which,  by  the  application  of  differ- 
ent colours  to  the  compartments  mapped 
out  by  one  and  the  selfsame  brass  stamp, 
a  surprising,  and  we  may  add  a  startling, 
variety  of '  effects  could  be  produced. 
This  parody  upon  the  art  of  book-bind- 
ing appears  to  have  met  with  the  disfa- 
vour it  deserved,  for  I  have  never  seen 
any  example  of  it,  save  the  one  upon  a 
gift  book  entitled  The  Rainbozv,  pub- 
lished in  Albany,  N.  Y.,  [848,  A.  L.  Har- 
rison, Hinder. 

The  variety  of  effects  in  form  and  col- 
our which  mottled,  marbled  and  sprinkled 
calf  are  capable  of  assuming  are  as  in- 
finite and  haphazard  as  those  which  cause 
the  children's  eyes  to  dance  with  delight 


when  they  turn  with  their  impatient  little 
hands  the  wonder-working  wheel  of  a 
kaleidoscope.  The  two  most  common 
styles  of  coloured  calf  bindings  are  the 
"Cambridge,"  in  which  the  calf  is  col- 
oured over  the  entire  surface,  except  a 
panel  left  uncoloured  in  the  centre  of  the 
boards,  and  treed  calf,  which  was  so 
great  a  favourite  with  the  late  Francis 
Bedford,  of  England.  These  calf  bind- 
ings certainly  possess  one  paramount  ad- 
vantage, and  that  is  the  smooth  and 
glossy  surfaces  they  present,  and  which 
render  them  the  most  inoffensive  and 
harmless  of  all  bindings  to  their  neigh- 
bours upon  the  book-shelf.  No  calf  bind- 
ing, however,  can  hold  up  its  head  before 
one  in  crushed  levant  morocco,  the  ne 
plus  ultra  for  the  covering  of  a  book. 

A  curious  effect  in  coloured  calf  is 
shown  in  the  cover  of  one  of  Lopez  and 
Wemyss's  Prompter  Books,  a  presenta- 
tion copy  to  the  Library  of  the  American 
Dramatic  Association,  and  presumably, 
therefore,  as  elaborate  a  binding  of  its 
kind  as  could  at  the  time  be  executed.  I 
find  the  same  vividly  coloured  calfskin 
upon  a  copy  of  Ackermann's  Repository, 
London,  [809,  which  has  in  it  a  ticket 
which  states  that  it  was  bound  by  Neal, 
Willis  &  Cole,  Baltimore,  Md. 

Prior  to  the  Revolutionary  War  sheep 
and  calf  skins  appear  to  have  been  the 
only  leathers  employed  by  American 
bookbinders.  Russia  leather,  so  popular 
in  England  in  the  days  of  Roger  Payne, 
came  in  vogue  at  a  later  period,  but,  for- 
tunately, was  never  used  to  any  extent, 
except  for  covering  merchants'  blank 
books  and  the  like,  for  it  is  the  most  ob- 
jectionable of  all  leathers  for  bookbind- 
ing purposes  on  account  of  its  tendency 
to  become  brittle  with  age  and  to  part  at 
the  joints.  The  one  redeeming  quality 
possessed  by  Russia  leather  is  its  fra- 
grance, which,  like  properly-cured  rose 
leaves,  it  will  retain  for  years. 

Long  after  morocco  leather  became  a 
regular  article  of  commerce  between  Eu- 
rope and  the  United  States,  calfskin  con- 
tinued to  be  extensively  used  for  the  cov- 
erings of  books,  probably  on  account  of 
its  relative  cheapness.  Tts  use  for  fine  or 
special  bindings  is  now  entirely  aban- 
doned, both  here  and  in  Europe. 

The  credit  for  having  raised  bibliopegy 


Four   Novels  of  the   Moment 


l75 


in  the  United  States  permanently  to  the 
rank  of  a  fine  art  belongs  indisputably  to 
William  Matthews,  who  was  horn  in  Ab- 
erdeen, Scotland,  in  1822,  and  died  at  his 
residence,  19  Pierrepont  Street,  Brook- 
lyn, X.  Y.,  April  15,  [896.  He  served  an 
apprenticeship  to  a  London  bookbinder, 
and  came  to  New  York  in  1843,  where 
for  three  years  he  worked  as  a  journey- 
man at  his  craft  of  bookbinding.  In 
1846  he  began  business  on  his  own  ac- 
count, and  in  1854  assumed  charge  of  the 
bindery  of  the  large  publishing  house  of 
D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  at  the  head  of  which 
he  remained  until  1890.  The  fine  bind- 
ings he  executed  were  mainly  a  relaxa- 
tion in  which  he  indulged  for  his  own 
pleasure,  the  gratification  of  his  cultured 
artistic  taste,  and  the  accommodation  of 
a  few  of  his  book-loving  friends.  So  far 
as  my  knowledge  extends,  he  never  pro- 
fessed to  make  a  business  of  special  and 
elaborately  tooled  bookbindings. 

The  lecture*  read  by  Mr.  Matthews  be- 
fore the  Grolier  Club  of  New  York  (of 
which  he  was  one  of  the  earliest,  most  in- 

*"Modern_  Book-binding  Practically  Consid- 
ered." A  lecture  read  before  the  Grolier  Club 
of  New  York,  March  25.  1885,  with  additions 
and  new  illustrations.  Bv  William  Matthews. 
The  Grolier  Club,  MDCCCLXXXIX. 


terested  and  valued  members),  March  25, 
1885,  and  subsequently  printed  by  the  so- 
ciety, demonstrates  his  familiarity  with 
the  history  of  the  art  he  loved  and  prac- 
tised, as  well  as  his  thorough  acquaint- 
ance with  its  technique. 

Of  living  American  bookbinders  I 
have  determined  not  to  speak,  for  it 
would  involve  criticism  and  also  compari- 
son, which,  we  are  told,  is  always  odious. 
The  annual  exhibitions  of  fine  book- 
bindings held  at  our  principal  book- 
stores, to  which  I  have  already  drawn  at- 
tention, embrace  examples  of  the  best 
work  of  all  the  prominent  American,  as 
well  as  European,  bibliopegists,  and  those 
interested  in  the  subject  have  in  these  at- 
tractive displays  ample  opportunities  to 
examine,  compare  and  judge  for  them- 
selves of  the  respective  merits  of  the  men 
and  women  who  at  present  are  following 
in  the  United  States  the  time-honoured 
and  beautiful  art  of  bookbinding. 

Before  them  still  lies  the  task  of  creat- 
ing a  style  of  book-cover  decoration  that 
can  compare  in  originality  and  fitness 
with  those  of  the  master  bibliopegists  of 
past  times,  whose  designs  even  Trautz, 
the  greatest  of  modern  French  binders, 
felt  his  inability  to  improve  upon. 


THE  END. 


FOUR   NOVELS  OF  THE   MOMENT 


T. 


Richard    Harding    Davis's    "Captain 
Macklin."* 

"We  have  here."  said  Clay,  gaily,  but  in  a 
low  voice,  "the  key  to  the  situation.  This 
is  the  gentleman  who  supplies  Mendoza  with 
the  sinews  of  war.  Captain  Burke  is  a  brave 
soldier  and  a  citizen  of  my  own  or  of  any 
country,  indeed,  which  happens  to  have  the 
most  sympathetic  Consul-General.  .  .  .  The 
Captain  is  a  man  of  few  words  and  extremely 
modest  about  himself,  so  I  must  tell  you  who 
he  is  myself.  He  is  a  promoter  of  revolu- 
tions. That  is  his  business — a  professional 
promoter     of     revolutions.   ...   I      wish      I 

♦Captain  Macklin.  By  Richard  Harding 
Davis.     New  York :   Charles   Scribner's   Sons. 


could  give  these  boys  an  idea  of  how  clever 
you  are.  Captain.  The  Captain  was  the 
first  man,  for  instance,  to  think  of  packing- 
cartridges  in  tubs  of  lard,  and  of  sending  rifles 
in  piano  cases.  He  represents  the  Welby  re- 
volver people  in  England  and  half  a  dozen 
firms  in  the  States,  and  he  has  his  little  stores 
in  Tampa  and  Mobile  and  Jamaica  ready  to 
ship  off  at  a  moment's  notice  to  any  revolu- 
tion in  Central  America.  When  f  first  met 
the  Captain,"  Clay  continued  gleefully,  "he 
was  starting  off  to  rescue  Arabi  Pasha  from 
the  Island  of  Ceylon." 

Among:  the  considerable  number  of  ex- 
ceptional  and  adventurous  men  to  whom 
Mr.  Davis  has  introduced  us  in  the  last 
ten  or  twelve  years  there  has  been  none 
who  has  made  a  better  impression  on  first 


